Telling tales

Christmas is a good time for telling stories. As our families get together, old tales are unwrapped and embellished.  New ones are added to the family folklore.  It's the same with friends too.  In our own version of One Day, we meet with old uni friends every Christmas and revisit our student days as if the last twenty years had never happened.

I take notes.  The prodigal son who uses the wrong knife.  The lock of hair kept in a school hymn book. So many tales to be told.

Damage

There's only so much self-improvement a girl can take.  It was time for a break from Middlemarch and Colloquial Italian.  I really needed a damned good read.

The road to hell (and heaven) is paved with book recommendations.  I suspected The Guardian's Books of the Year to be a little too highbrow for my current purpose, so I turned to my Open University friend Cathy and her blog Cathyreadsbooks for inspiration.  I've never met Cathy, but from what I know of her writing and her blog I feel that we're on the same wavelength.  What's more, I think she knows a good read when she sees one.  So when she said that Damage by Josephine Hart was one of her favourites, I knew it was worth a try.

I wasn't disappointed.  A successful middle-aged man has an affair. But this is no ordinary affair; it's obsessive, all-consuming and the woman in question is his son's girlfriend. It's shocking and horribly compelling.  I'd forgotten that guilty pleasure of devouring a book in one sitting, so thank you Cathy for reminding me.

From Dombey and Son to the Wandsworth riots

The first instalment of Dombey and Son appeared in1846 and sold thirty thousand copies.  It tells the story of a man so cold, proud and obsessed with money and status that he cannot love the people around him.  As I read it I'm struck by the contemporaneity of the novel's themes: the pain caused by a dysfunctional family, the impact of societal change and economic insecurity.  I like the way Dickens presents a view of society as a whole, rather than limiting himself to the drawing room.  I like his minor characters too, from their unusual names - Major Bagstock, Miss Tox, Captain Cuttle - to their distinguishing features such as Carker's malevolent smile and 'Cleopatra' reclining on her couch.

Dombey and Son wouldn't be the first choice on my bookshelf.  The size itself, a hefty 900 pages, would deter many modern readers.  It originally appeared in a more manageable format: nineteen monthly instalments with illustrations by Boz.  I like to imagine the excitement the latest instalment would have caused, rather like a modern-day audience might discuss a storyline in Eastenders or the latest Big Brother eviction.  Each instalment cost a shilling and would be passed around many people.  I imagine too, in a household with perhaps only one reader, the latest episode being read aloud to the rest of the family.  Dickens knew how to engage his readers, creating memorable characters and ending each part on a cliffhanger.

My Open University friend Claire Jones has just published episode four of her novel Davy and Me on her blog.Set at the time of the Wandsworth riots, she delivers perfect bite-size pieces and leaves you wanting more.  It's good to see that serialized novels are still alive and kicking.  And you don't have to pay a shilling.