Burning shovels!
In Turkish, there is a popular saying, something like ‘March makes you look out of the door, then makes you burn your shovels and pickaxes’. It means the weather can be really lovely in March, and then suddenly turn cold again, causing people to burn any piece of wood they can find. This year was no exception. We did have some lovely sunshine, but there has also been a cold wind.
I have been working on an edit/second draft of the new book set in Turkey. I was held up for a while when I realised that the time line didn’t work and I had to revise the start of the string of events which culminates in the main character moving to Turkey. I have sorted out that problem, though the book will need at least one more draft before it’s ready to be edited.
At the same time, I have been working on the book, Precious Things, which I wrote 6 years ago. It is set in London and the main character is an elderly lady, called Iris. I love this character and reading her story can still make me cry—even though I know better than anyone that it is fictional. It is probably partly because the traumas of Iris’s life are things that many people go through for real, but might also be because you can get quite close to characters when you have lived with them in your head for so long!
There is also the start of a third book in the Turkish Village (Kismet Pension) series starting to take shape in my head. I tend to wake up several times during the night, and one of the things I do if I can’t get back to sleep is to start plotting stories. Unfortunately, once I start, I often get so carried away that there is no chance of nodding off. Still, the quiet and the lack of other distractions seems to allow my imagination to roam freely and although I had some basic ideas for the book, I was delighted one night to come up with an embellishment that will bring the women of the village together to stand up to the traditional chauvism!
I had a lovely couple of days away hiking last weekend. The village of Akyaka is about an hour and a half’s drive away. It was on the UN’s list of Best Tourism Villages last year – chosen for the way it has managed to preserve natural beauty and heritage while promoting sustainable tourism. It is known for the distinctive style of its houses, which incorporate beautiful wooden features (see photo above), and for the estuary, on which you can take a short ride in an electric boat.
Not far from Akyaka is the town of Köyceğiz and the lake of the same name. Despite being only the 16th largest lake in Turkey, this is more than three times the size of Lake Windermere! It is also unusual in that its water is a mix of fresh water that comes in from rivers and salt water that flows in from the nearby sea through the Dalyan river, which has a two-way flow.
My reading this month has been partly inspired by film and television. I actually bought the audible version of Hamnet some years ago while on a long coach tour of the southeast of Turkey, but only listened to a few chapters. The advent of the film, inspired me and I have listened to the whole book, as well as going to see the film. Following on from my recent (personal) ‘Jane Austen revival’, I was delighted to find The Other Bennett Sister. I haven’t yet watched the telelevised version, but having seen the cast, I imagine it will be wonderful!
Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell
The book is a gorgeous imagining of Shakespeare’s family life. It gives an alternative suggestion to the popular theory that the great bard lived away from his family for much of his time because he couldn’t stand his wife. Instead, it suggests that their unique bond meant that his wife (Agnes/Ann) saw how miserable he was stuck in Stratford, teaching Latin and helping his violent father, and actually encouraged him to go to London and follow his dream. The book (unlike the film) skips between two time lines, and although the main story is the tragic death of one of their children and how it may have led Shakespeare to write the play Hamlet, it is all the other things that happen along the way that make the book so rich.
The Other Bennet Sister – Janice Hadlow
I loved revisiting the Bennet family. The author has done an incredible job of retelling some of the events of Pride and Prejudice from a different viewpoint, but at the same time, keeping true to all the characters in the original book. Mrs Bennet is truly awful—self-absorbed, foolish and consistently cruel to her middle daughter, Mary, who is the main character of the book. Mr Bennet alternates between shutting himself away in the library and, when he must be in the company of his wife, baiting her. His sarcasm and wit are wonderful, as, for example, when Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth and he remarks that her choice is, “a sad one, for her mother would never see her again if she refused to marry Mr Collins and he would never see her agin if she did”!
Thankfully, like all good Austen heroines, Mary gets her happy-ever-after. But it makes you grateful that you didn’t live in those times. when behaviour was so confined by propriety and social norms—though one could argue that we’ve gone too far the other way now!
Happy Easter!
Melanie