A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles was the first book I read this year. I had no idea at when I started it how much Russia and Ukraine were going to feature in my year’s reading, and looking back at the books I read in 2022, it is bizarre how many were set in Russia/Ukraine, or were about war, as war is not a subject I naturally veer towards.

Having said that, maybe I should refer to what it is I like to read before telling you my best reading of the year. In brief, I like stories that sweep me into the scenery, I enjoy experiencing the emotional upheaval of the characters in the book. I do like ‘reality’ in my reading and enjoy references to ‘actual’ places and events that happened. I like ideas, discussion, and seeing how the characters are driven. I like novels with a philosophical bent…and this, in fact, brings me back to A Gentleman in Moscow.

The book is set in Moscow during a forty year period of the early 20^th century. The protagonist, a respectable count, is condemned by an early revolutionary committee to live in a Moscow hotel for the rest of his life. The story is about how he adapts and makes use of his ‘honourable’ and ‘civilised’ principles. It’s clever, witty, erudite and well written.

I listen to a lot of radio and get many of my book recommendations from this source as well as podcasts.  I had never heard of Konstantin Paustovsky, a Russian writer, who wrote about his life in Ukraine and Russia during the first half of the 20^th century. His memoir ‘The Story of a Life’ is an extraordinary book. It is broken into three parts, childhood; the war and youth; and the revolution and the WWII. The book is beautifully descriptive, so I felt as if I was really experiencing life in Kiev as a child. In the second part he travels throughout Russia as a medical orderly on a train, picking up injured and dead bodies from the war. The poverty, violence, and cruelty caused by war is vividly described yet so is the kindness, sensitivity and resilience of the individual people he comes across. The third section which covers the Russian Revolution onwards depicts the chaos and confusion that people lived with. The book really illuminated the territory and history of Ukraine which was particularly fascinating given Russian’s invasion at the start of the year. Paustovsky was a romantic and a writer in search of experience and in his memoir he forges a path through violence and horror finding the glory of human nature and the power of humanity in a society that was cruel and relentless.

I read The Story of a Life just after reading To Paradise by Hanya Yanighara which is also three books in one. So, after the Story of a Life I wanted to read something shorter and thought maybe an Irish author would do the trick. So, I read Audrey Magee’s The Undertaking. Oddly enough, it is also set in Russia during the war and shows how human vanity massages the weakness of human nature. While being a grim read it was again vivid in its description of the violence, greed, fear and shame…the ultimate victors of war. I found Audrey Magee’s other book, The Colony, an easier read, though the violence of the Troubles in the North is interleaved throughout its pages. It too is a beautiful book. Her language reflects the harsh conditions of the islanders, the cruelty of deprivation, the hypocrisy of love and honour and how small communities breed jealousy, resentment and betrayal. It’s very good, but sad.

I guess, because I enjoy reading books about people, it is inevitable that many I read are about violence and degradation. But this year in particular, most have shined a light on the harsh nature of everyday cruelty. I read thirty five books this year so I am not going to go into all of them but I do want to mention Natasha Brown’s Assembly which, although short, stayed with me a long time after I read it. For me, it was beautifully written and very poignant. It is about a young black woman living in London who works extremely hard and makes it in the world of Finance. But she finds herself wondering for why? She is still black, peoples’ attitudes have not changed, her liberal middle class white boyfriend and his family have no appreciation of her real self and existence; she realises she still doesn’t belong and never will. She gets an incurable cancer, tells no one and doesn’t mind that she is dying. Natasha Brown’s minute observations of people’s behaviour and attitude are very sharp. It is a short book, well written and shocking.

Yes, unfortunately, dying featured a lot in my reading this year (is this blog itself beginning to tell a tale?) and one the best books I read in 2022 was Mend The Living by French author, Maylis de Kerengel. It is an extraordinary book, but wonderfully positive. The language, the words (brilliant translation by Jessica Moore) encapsulated and surfed the emotions that are immersed in life, death and love. The detail, the technical words drill down into the heart of the book. It’s about a boy who becomes ‘brain dead’ and the consequent ‘harvesting’ of his organs. It begins with him surfing the waves in North France. The description of the water, the force, the rise, the fall, the pressure, the balance of the wave is then continued throughout the ‘death’, the ‘actions’ of the doctors , the relationships and reactions of the loved ones, the recipients. Each has its own sequence, delving into the power /forces of emotion through words and technicalities, each of which enrich and deepen our understanding. Her use of language is exquisite, as was the use of words in The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard. The latter book is an examination on love. Yes, it reveals love in all its glory, mendaciousness and ordinary betrayal. The story is erudite and clever. Her attention to language is precise. She succeeds, with marvellous perception, in illustrating the minutest aspect of love through exquisite detail and with a wonderful use of metaphor and simile. It is extremely satisfying.

I also enjoyed the latest Celeste Ng Our Missing Hearts about a dystopian future with strong roots in our present day. It picks up on the current streams of right wing hatred and nationalism. The book illustrates the power of words, language, stories, poems, origins, nature and innocence. It describes both the beauty and the cruelty of courage and the need for us all to share our humanity.

I think these were the books that stood out for me in 2022 but I also want to mention A Golden Age by Tamima Anem which showed the brutality of the Pakistani response to the Bangladeshi bid for independence. I knew little about this.  Lessons by Ian McKewan I found slightly irksome though fun because it spanned my life experience. However, I think it was too long though this book and the recent detective novel of Val McDermuid, The Distant Echo, are both novels which span nearly the whole lives of their characters in order to reflect the impact of what happens in youth. Wisdom clearly comes with the author’s age. In contrast, White City, by Kevin Power, a younger writer, was in really brutal and in your face. Set in Dublin, it was about the corrupt investment practices of the rich and powerful, the reign of drugs, and the weak moral fibre of the upper classes. It is gritty, well written and incredibly depressing. Finally, If It Bleeds by Stephen King whose novels I haven’t read before, I really enjoyed. Stephen King is a concise writer, he does tension brilliantly and his plots are absorbing. I will go back for more in 23.

I’m able to write this review of the books because after reading each book, I write a short blurb about what its about and what I think of it. If I don’t do this, I forget, which is worrying because most books I read these days help me frame my thinking.  I have never had a great memory which is why I have always written, whether it be notes as a student, or as a part of my work. When I start to write I can see my thoughts start to take shape. They then begin to behave like an unruly crowd and all jostle for attention. It is only when I reorder or line them up (literally), that I can clarify my thinking. My poems come from this disorder too. If I didn’t write, I wouldn’t think clearly.

The books above, fiction or memoir, helped me appreciate better the world we live in and somehow made a little more sense of the madness which seems to be all about us, while, at the same time, magically, allowing me to escape it.

Happy New Year!

I have spent the last five days feeling very at home in five different places, each hundreds of miles away from the other, which is a little odd. Why did I feel at so at home at each place? I guess because of the friend/family where I was and the food and drink they served me.  It’s odd to travel so far, journey on planes, buses and trains, and then put my feet up in the company of that person, eat a meal, drink a glass, feel very at home, and then move on to a totally different place where I feel equally at home.

However, I must tell you, to my horror, and his chagrin, one of these old beloved friends didn’t recognise me while walking past me at the airport, probably because I was walking with a stick rather than a glass of wine in my hand!!

Anyway, after finally tracking each other down in the Orange Car Park in Stanstead with the help of mobile phones, we stood appraising each other. His hair, like mine, is on the turn. It’s at a grubby, mid-way between brown and grey, two tone stage. We have both got droopier and have bulges which we try hide with shapeless baggy clothes. He has crooked fingers due to arthritis, I have the aforementioned stick, due to the same condition. But he still had his long nose, shaggy eyebrows, deep voice which launched into a familiar rant about the decline of the country, the stupidity of the Tory party, and the bullying unions while we succeeded (with irritated muttered asides, and various about turns) in navigating ourselves out of the airport complex.

Finally, we got to his posh new house where I spent the next ice ridden day either stretched out on his sofa, in front of the new stove fire, with a glass in one hand and a fork in the other or exploring the idiosyncratic architecture of the well appointed local streets of six bedroomed houses and the charming alleyways and lanes in the centre of the endless Colchester ring roads and roundabouts. The focal points of my short stay were the noodle restaurant where we had delicious ramen and other delicacies for lunch, the new air fryer, and the cheese feast.

Having had my fill of the above, and they of me sprawling on their couch, Martin dropped me at Colchester station, still decrying the unswept streets, and ineffective practices of the council, en-route. There, I got an on time, working train to Liverpool St, and caught an efficient tube to Green Park and made my way to the upstairs bar of The Goat for the 40^th plus reunion of friends from my alma mater, the University of East Anglia. There was only one person I didn’t recognise due to age altering differences (and I would have done had I crossed the room), and the afternoon passed very pleasantly with me finding out what everyone was doing and explaining to them what it is a poet does while imbibing pink champagne…. so, obviously, one or two were doing extremely profitable things and happy to share the fruits of their labour! Thank you, Ray, in particular.

Maria (one of my best alma mater mates) and I made our way back to her house where I was staying overnight, stopping off at the new Marks and Spencer in Finsbury Park to pick up a fish pie, watercress and salad leaves, some St Agur, a bag of peas, mangetous and spinach, as well as bars of alcohol soaked stollen for dessert, not forgetting a bottle of Pro Secco and we spent a happy evening, feet up, discussing all our other old friends and relations which is what you do while eating and drinking with bestest and oldest friends.

The next day, after joining Maria in a few irritating banking chores, and after further foraging in Waitrose in Holloway, I caught an on time and efficient Stanstead Express. Sadly, there, the woes of Blighty finally caught up with me and I was delayed for hours, while Ryanair battled the elements and I got charged £12 for a glass of red. Actually, I was lucky to escape the strike embattled / high cost of living UK at all. Many poor people got stranded but, thankfully, I was able to make my way through the snow driven streets of Dublin to the warm hearth of my very pregnant daughter in Stoneybatter. This was my third ‘home’ from ‘home’ in four days, and I got served a tasty plate of roast pork cooked in honey and mustard with roast vegetables, and a delicious bottle of red.

The next day, at 9.30am at Pauline’s home, one of Roisin’s best friends, the last home I went to on this trek other than my own, for breakfast we had delicious pain au chocolat, croissants, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, grapes, granola and coffee. This was followed by a birth blessing ceremony beautifully facilitated by Jenny Lee. Six of Roisin’s best friends came, three with lovely babies, and we did breathing exercises, sent good intentions to my beautiful daughter for her labour and symbolically bound ourselves and our female ancestors with red wool binding our love and loyalty. I was chuffed to be asked and felt strangely at home in this lovely group of young women and mothers. I was treated as if I was a wise woman (which I’m obviously not, but it was a good feeling). Funnily enough, I burst into tears and wasn’t able for the beetroot coleslaw, the wensleydale, cold roast chicken, the avocado smash on brown bread, not even a smidgeon of the array of colourful hummus’.

At the end of my five day trek, I was pleased to see husband Jerry who came to collect me and we drove home to fog bound Cavan, put up the Christmas Tree, and while I cooked spaghetti carbonara for supper, we toasted ourselves and our own lovely home with the last of the crémant from France!