Life must be filled up

It's getting dusky already and for some reason I'm remembering how we used to peer out of the window on Bonfire Night longing for the dark and the excitement to come. I used to read this book to get me in the mood. In those pre-health and safety days there'd be a bonfire and fireworks in almost every back garden. We were allowed not only to buy fireworks ourselves but to keep them in our bedrooms. We bought the little ones, 'holding fireworks' as they were known ('Always Hold in Gloved Hand'); Golden Rain, Silver Fountain, sparklers. The catherine wheels and rockets were left to the grownups.



It was one of the great events of the year and Hallow'een didn't exist for us. Bonfire Night is still taken seriously in places like Lewes but you only have to look at the shops to know that the time of year has been Americanised. Shame. It was such fun going into the foggy garden next morning (the weather has changed, too!) looking for dead rockets with the smell of old smoke and chrysanthemums hanging in the air.

Here's Adrian Mole on the subject:
Friday November 6th
Last night some irresponsible people down our street had bonfire parties in their own back gardens!
Yes!
In spite of being warned of all the dangers by the radio, television, Blue Peter and the media they went selfishly ahead.

Saturday November 7th
The Marriage Guidance Council bonfire was massive. It was a good community effort....
Nobody was seriously burned but I think it was a mistake to hand out fireworks at the same time the food was being served.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, 1982

There's a thread running on a mailing list I'm on: 'Where did you first read that book'? I was reminded of one book in particular by Private Eye's Literary Review of Garrison Keillor's new book, Liberty. They hate it, of course; they only review in order to be nasty. The anonymous reviewer should at least acknowledge that the first book in the series has something going for it.

I was in Orlando, Florida, in bed in a swish hotel. I knew nothing about the book, the same edition shown here; American with '#1 National Bestseller' on the cover. A few pages in I got to, 'it would make a good picture, if you had the right lens, which no one in this town has got.' I laughed out loud and was converted. The same thing happened with the first Adrian Mole book, which I also started in complete ignorance. I shrieked when the dog came back from the vet's after having a pirate extracted from its paw (you have to have read the book) and there began another love affair. That would have been Christmas 1982, on the sofa. I still re-read Lake Wobegon Days and my current bed book is The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole .

Any books linked forever with the place you first read them?

I see I read more books than I thought I had last month. Here’s the list, with links if I’ve written about the books already.


One Good Turn, Kate Atkinson
Lily A Ghost Story, Adèle Geras. An odd little book, branded a ‘Quick Read’, which I assumed was aimed at older children, but perhaps not. A strange mixture of Jacqueline Wilson and The Girl on a Swing.
The House on the Kopje , Mollie Chappell
The Fortunes of Frick, Mollie Chappell
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen , Paul Torday
Digging to America , Anne Tyler
Stormy Petrel , Mary Stewart
Pilgrimage 1, Dorothy Richardson
Life Skills, Katie Fforde. Always a pleasure.
All the Adrian Mole books one after the other, when I felt poorly. I wished there were more.
Collector’s Lot, Stanley W Fisher

I didn’t get very far with David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
before giving up in despair. It had been so highly praised that I was delighted when other people confessed that it had failed to press their buttons. I was then assured that Black Swan Green was completely different, one advisor telling me, rather humiliatingly, (you know who you are :-)) that it was ‘more accessible’. It is. Jason is growing up in the Midlands in the early 1980s and the book circles around his home life (difficult), school (worse), out of school (scary) and what goes on in his head (strange). It’s well written, if chockfull of date-pointers, as so many books now seem to be. I’m enjoying it but, I will just say this quietly, it is poshed-up Adrian Mole with less funny jokes. Yes folks, I think Sue Townsend is a better writer than David Mitchell. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole makes you laugh, makes you cry and is brilliantly succinct. Black Swan Green makes you think: this author is quite clever.

Contrary to certain miserable prognostications, the tulips I bought the other day are still standing up straight and giving pleasure. Fans of Adrian Mole will of course recognise my title as a quote from Barry Kent's prize winning poem from The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

Nice, red, tall stiff,
In a vase,
On a table,
In a room,
In our house.

'According to Henderson, Kent's poem shows Japanese cultural influences! How stupid can you get?
The nearest Barry Kent has got to Japanese culture is sitting on the pillion of a stolen Honda.'