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[books 2013] Melvyn Bragg
Jul. 7th, 2013 08:12 pm41. Grace and Mary by Melvyn Bragg
I'm a big fan of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on Radio 4, and the various documentaries he makes for the BBC, but I've never read any of his fiction. When the new book came out recently I reserved it at the library.
I read the first 12 pages on the bus home, but wasn't convinced. I decided to give it another chance, read it on the bus to work and still wasn't convinced. Persisted as I had nothing else to read at lunch time, and the next thing I knew I was late getting back to my desk and 1/3 of the book was gone.
It's a very gentle story of life in Wigton, Cumbria through the last century. John, a 70-something writer, is regularly making the journey from London to visit his mother Mary, who is in her 90s and has dementia. He talks to her about her life, including Grace, who was Mary's biological mother - as a single mother she was unable to keep Mary, but instead of having her adopted there was a bizarre fostering arrangement whereby Grace sent money for her upkeep every week and got to visit once a month.
I got annoyed at the beginning because it seemed to be wallowing in nostalgia, and if you want to read it that way you probably can. But Bragg doesn't pull his punches about the less lovely aspects of working class life in the early to mid 20th century, and is critiquing the concept of nostalgia and the people who think everything was better in the past.
The John character is more than a bit Bragg himself - John is writing a book on Wycliffe, and at the same time Bragg was making a TV programme on Tyndale - both, depending on your definition, first translators of the Bible into English.
Not at all the sort of thing I usually read, and I'm not sure that I'm in a big hurry to read more of Bragg's fiction, but I am really glad I read this. Plus, it only took 3 days of reading strictly on the bus and at lunch.
I'm a big fan of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on Radio 4, and the various documentaries he makes for the BBC, but I've never read any of his fiction. When the new book came out recently I reserved it at the library.
I read the first 12 pages on the bus home, but wasn't convinced. I decided to give it another chance, read it on the bus to work and still wasn't convinced. Persisted as I had nothing else to read at lunch time, and the next thing I knew I was late getting back to my desk and 1/3 of the book was gone.
It's a very gentle story of life in Wigton, Cumbria through the last century. John, a 70-something writer, is regularly making the journey from London to visit his mother Mary, who is in her 90s and has dementia. He talks to her about her life, including Grace, who was Mary's biological mother - as a single mother she was unable to keep Mary, but instead of having her adopted there was a bizarre fostering arrangement whereby Grace sent money for her upkeep every week and got to visit once a month.
I got annoyed at the beginning because it seemed to be wallowing in nostalgia, and if you want to read it that way you probably can. But Bragg doesn't pull his punches about the less lovely aspects of working class life in the early to mid 20th century, and is critiquing the concept of nostalgia and the people who think everything was better in the past.
The John character is more than a bit Bragg himself - John is writing a book on Wycliffe, and at the same time Bragg was making a TV programme on Tyndale - both, depending on your definition, first translators of the Bible into English.
Not at all the sort of thing I usually read, and I'm not sure that I'm in a big hurry to read more of Bragg's fiction, but I am really glad I read this. Plus, it only took 3 days of reading strictly on the bus and at lunch.
