The Sunday Salon – The Welsh Girl

I reckoned during last week’s Sunday Salon where I had started The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies that I’d finish it within a matter of days, as it was a nice, easy to read story, but of course life gets in the way of books, so apart from a few snatched moments reading at a cafe and outside a ballet lesson, I didn’t really get a chance to finish it until today.

So now I can give my final impressions, The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies is ‘nice’ (although the subject matter itself is not nice), set in principal in a Welsh village during the Second World, it tells the story of how the village responds to the arrival of prisoners of wars. Told from the viewpoints of Esther, a village girl, Karsten, a German prisoner of war and Rotherham an officer of German origin working for the allies, as with a lot of stories with differing viewpoints it can be a little piecemeal, I wasn’t totally sure what the point of the character of Rotherham was and he doesn’t feature for much of the story, I can only think that as someone who grew up in Germany but was working for the Allies he was meant to act as a bridge between the two sides of the story. The character of Esther, well I’ve heard alot of discussion recently whether male writers can write women and to be honest normally I don’t notice any difference, but Ho Davies’ portrayal of Esther did seem a little odd and at times I had trouble feeling sympathy for her. My favourite character though was Karsten, I thought he was really well done and I found it easy to be in the shoes of a German prisoner of war.

So in my verdict of The Welsh Girl as ‘nice’ where does it stand in my own personal Richard and Judy Bookclub rankings? To be honest I don’t think it was the best book of the lot, so here’s the final (as The Welsh Girl is the last of this year’s Richard and Judy list) list.

1. A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory – every page grips you, scares you and tears at your heart.
2. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon – a very close second, it is deeply and beautifully researched invoking the sites, sounds and smells of the Crimean War.
3. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones – a lovely little story of bravery and island life, let down in my opinion by it’s final 20 pages.
4. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann – the description of the journey across Siberia is epic
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – a very vivid description of life at a terrible period of time in Afghanistan’s history.
6. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies – a nice readable story
7. Blood River by Tim Butcher – non-fiction so difficult to judge
8. Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale – just not my sought of book, far too ‘cosy’.
9. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris – argh this is hard, I liked this book but Notes from an exhibition was more flawlessly written in my opinion.
10. The Visible World by Mark Slouka – I’m sorry, but for me this book dragged.

So in summary what did I think of this year’s Richard and Judy Bookclub list? Most of the books were really good and it was hard to judge between them, I only really did not like The Visible World and even that had some really beautiful scenes in, it was just the bits in between I had problems with. I can thoroughly recommend A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol and Mister Pip plus A Thousand Splendid Suns and Blood River provide thought provoking insights into troubled parts of the world only seen briefly on news stations. Who do I think will win the British Book Awards Best Read of the Year? I’d like it to be A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol or Mister Pip but I have a feeling it’ll be A Thousand Splendid Suns.

So now, ten weeks, ten books (actually I’ve read a few more than that), no more Richard and Judy to read, so it’s back to the Unread Book Mountain, which is a rather a nice feeling. I’m currently also mid-way through Stephen King’s On Writing, I’d heard so many good things about it over the last few months I had to read it. I still haven’t finished The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and I’m not sure I will. I think what’s luring me the most is Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch, now that looks good. Plus of course thanks to the Richard and Judy list I’ve got some new books to add to my ‘to be purchased list’ notably R.J. Ellory and Katherine McMahon.

A Quiet Belief in Angels

Wow! To use a cliche, R.J. Ellory’s A Quiet Belief in Angels is a rollercoaster of a ride. By the end of it you know ‘who did it’ just before the hero does and you’re leaving indentions in the pages because you’re gripping the book so hard and willing the pages to go faster just to get to the showdown, although R.J. Ellory isn’t in a hurry to get to the end and eeks out the tension deliciously just a little bit more. But I’m getting ahead of myself, but so does Ellory, opening the book with the aftermath of the final confrontation, you are immediately left wanting to know more as our hero Joseph takes you through his tragic life story. Growing up in small town Georgia in the 1940s, his town Augusta Falls is plagued by a series of gruesome child murders which haunt Joseph. Looking at the repercussions of those tragic events and also what it means to be a writer (Joseph’s chosen profession), the story follows him as he grows up, more murders, more family tragedy later Joseph escapes to New York and here the book becomes for a moment quite different, in a way reminiscent of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, in style at least. However tragedy catches up with Joseph and he is wrongly imprisoned, when he eventually gets out he realises he can’t escape his past and he has to confront it. I would thoroughly recommend this book.

Finally, the collective Richard and Judy list (of which A Quiet Belief in Angels is part of) are up for the British Book Awards, so here is Mrs. Lacer’s own ‘guess the winner’ list where I’ll be ranking which book on the list I think should win. So I’ve read three now, so although a short list this is what I think is the best so far;

1.  A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory – every page grips you, scares you and tears at your heart.
2. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon – a very close second, it is deeply and beautifully researched invoking the sites, sounds and smells of the Crimean War.
3. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann