Books on ENGLAND

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

The Slaves of Solitude

Excellent Women

Tamara Drewe

Hangover Square

Middlemarch

Notes from November 2019

I listened to a podcast about Middlemarch, a book I adore. A couple of interesting things were brought up that I hadn’t thought of.

(1) The comparisons of Dorothea to St. Teresa.

One of the hosts mentions the Bernini statue which is in Rome where Dorothea has her terrible honeymoon and first meets Will Ladislaw (I understand Eliot visited Rome so I guess it’s likely she would have been familiar with the statue). This immediately made sense to me in terms of Dorotheas initial rejection of the world of the senses (most notably she thinks horse riding is a terrible sensuous indulgence that only a pagan would enjoy) and her experience in Rome specifically of encountering the fantastic physical reality sculpture having been “fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the hand-screen sort” and the sculpture in question is so physical.

Adside: This statue of St Teresa also plays an interesting role in Anna Burns excellent Milkman.

(2) They bring up Middlemarch as a kind of expression of Spinozan philosophy esp. the ethical dimension but also determinism.

I’m into this. My mind immediately jumped to the matter of the will which is one of my favourite scenes in the book. Also, morality of inaction; Mary chooses to refuse action by not burning the second will whilst later Mr Bulstrode attempts to avoid moral culpability by remaining passive.

Good grief, it’s such a good book!

Notes from Jan 2022

The BBCs 1994 adaptation of Middlemarch has been on iPlayer for the last while and we watched the first episode the other night. I didn’t watch the end as I had to help a child get to sleep but I don’t feel the urge to watch further episodes. The whole thing just felt wrong, not my Middlemarch. Dorothea started off too sympathetic and her sister too shallow, it felt cartoonish. I did like the relationship between Mr. Farebrother and Lydgate.

Cold Comfort Farm

The Sword In The Stone

The Witch in the Wood

The Ill Made Knight

Eminent Domain

Is this still the world she lives in? The world in which no one goes hungry or unloved, no one faces old age with fear or sees their life consumed by the drudgery of work, where the pace of life has slowed and there is time for play and contemplation, to explore the world and each other, all forms of life, all species, everything fallen into the embrace of a humanity liberated at last, free from struggle and united as one world into its finer nature?

Coldwar thriller set in alternate 2018, the UK has become the Peoples Republic of Britain having undergone a period of social collapse and revolution during the 80s/90s. The Autarchy and The Breach. Really,m emorable but I found it oddly dissapointing.

I’m not much into cold war espionage stuff (Le Carré etc) books and this takes its plot outline from that genre (very apt), all hidden motives etc.

On the other hand I had no problem with the back and forth structure that some reviews have griped at, though perhaps the obstacles it puts up when combined with the number of made up words etc. is too much of the wrong sort of friction.

I loved so much about this book. The tiny details of world building, the underlying philosphy which rejects historical materialism even as the central (ambiguous) utopia embraces the concept whole-heartedly, all of it. The way attachment to things is considered a mental illness to be medicated is a fantastic detail and a pointed comment. It’s a novel which has things to say and does so clearly though the world building.

It’s the kind of book I’m going to recomend to people and buy for people just so I can talk to about it, about everything that’s great and everything that’s wrong with it. i.e. This is the best kind of book.

England, England

Set in the near future (from 1998's perspective, so about now I would think) The Isle of Wight is turned into a theme park version of England, leading to the "decline" of the mainland. Tourism following the royal family and replicas of Stone Henge, The Old Cheshire Cheese and the Houses of Parliament (all staffed by actors), migrates to the island. Barnes treats the theme park England as a microcosm for a kind of Singapore-ish corporate state, capital is king and law is enforced at the will of the CEO (this is mostly achieved by deporting people by ferry to Dieppe though it's made clear that corporal punishment is absolutely on the cards). From 1998's perspective I imagine this is a kind of end state for Blair/ Brown central planning managerialism, ultimate (classical) liberalism in an authoritarian mode. Meanwhile, freed from it's Imperial myths and royal family, Old England, rechristened Anglia, becomes a kind of sleepy backwater where the half-remembered rituals of village life are rekindled.

It's a short book but there's a lot going on, particularly in the final section where we fast forward 30 years to see what's become of Anglia. The two versions of England that Barnes sketches don't line up neatly with our current political categories which gives the book a pleasing extra layer of friction. Broadly the suggestion is that the myths England attaches to itself prevent it from moving on. By bundling these stories up and sequestering them offshore Anglia is able to become the sleepy backwater that more naturally befits a small nation on a small island on the western edge of Europe, a national identity begins to regrow freed of the toxic stories of empire and power. This is not to say Anglia is a pastoral idyll. Espescially viewed from 2025, where the tone of the "debate" on immigration is pretty horrible, the inward looking inhabitants can be seen to represent something darker.

(Scotland and Wales, slightly expanded through war and purchase, are apparently able to operate comfortably within a more federal EU, this is kind of off stage)

The list

The printout of Jeff's survey was laid before Sir Jack on his Battle Table. Potential purchasers of Quality Leisure in twenty-five countries had been asked to list six characteristics, virtues or quintessences which the word England suggested to them. They were not being asked to free-associate; there was no pressure of time on the respondents, no preselected multiple choice. "If we're giving people what they want," Sir Jack had insisted, "then we should at least have the humility to find out what that might be" Citizens of the world therefore told Sir Jack in an unprejudiced way what in their view the Fifty Quintessences of Englishness were:

  1. ROYAL FAMILY
  2. BIG BEN/ HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
  3. MANCHESTER UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB
  4. GLASS SYSTEM
  5. PUBS
  6. A ROBIN IN THE SNOW
  7. ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRIE MEN
  8. CRICKET
  9. WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER
  10. IMPERIALISM
  11. UNION JACK
  12. SNOBBERY
  13. GOD SAVE THE KING/ QUEEN
  14. BBC
  15. WEST END
  16. TIMES NEWSPAPER
  17. SHAKESPEARE
  18. THATCHED COTTAGES
  19. CUP OF TEA/DEVONSHIRE CREAM TEA
  20. STONEHENGE
  21. PHLEGM/ STIFF UPPER LIP
  22. SHOPPING
  23. MARMALADE
  24. BEEFEATERS/ TOWER OF LONDON
  25. LONDON TAXIS
  26. BOWLER HAT
  27. TV CLASSIC SERIALS
  28. OXFORD/ cAMBRIDGE
  29. HARRODS
  30. DOUBLE-DECKER BUSES/RED BUSES
  31. HYPOCRISY
  32. GARDENING
  33. PERFIDY / UNTRUSTWORTHINESS
  34. HALF-TIMBERING
  35. HOMOSEXUALITY
  36. ALICE IN WONDERLAND
  37. WINSTON CHURCHILL
  38. MARKS & SPENCER
  39. BATTLE OF BRITAIN
  40. FRANCIS DRAKE
  41. TROOPING THE COLOUR
  42. WHINGEING
  43. QUEEN VICTORIA
  44. BREAKFAST
  45. BEER/ WARM BEER
  46. EMOTIONAL FRIGIDITY
  47. WEMBLEY STADIUM
  48. FLAGELLATION/PUBLIC SCHOOLS
  49. NOT WASHING/BAD UNDERWEAR
  50. MAGNA CARTA

All text and photographs are © Tom Pearson 2009-2025 unless otherwise noted.

🚧 Permananetly under construction, please excuse the debris, dead ends, poor spelling/ grammar, and half-baked opinions. 🚧