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Interleaved

The image of Colonel Bee stringing his telegraph wires throughout the trees. and some observer christening his improvised communications network, 'the grapevine'; and that nickname becoming a national metaphor for improvised or non-structured communication, is awesome.

Would we even know and use the term so generally if it hadn't have been for the Marvin Gaye song? (Especially here in the UK).

It answers a long-term question of mine that I'd forgotten. As a youngster, I'd never encountered the term and the aforementioned song lyrics baffled me when first heard. 

It was as alien to my ear and someone singing 'I heard it through the strawberry plant' or  'I heard it through the turnip'

It's okay; keeping me reading, but there is not a great deal going on and I'm midway through. It's very much a female read (IMO). Written by a female and the two protagonists are also female. It is the Woman's POV.

That's not a bad thing, I'm not complaining, and I knew what I was in for. History is usually all about the men. The women in history are (traditionally) not given the focus and predominance they deserve. It is refreshing to see/hear the other side of it.

I like Fremantle's prose, it is clear and succinct whilst flowing naturally and is a pleasure to absorb. Her portrayal of Tudor/Elizabethan life is fascinating. I think I prefer it to some of the more highly acclaimed Hilary Mantel stuff. For me Fremantle rolls off the page a little more smoothly and still retains the Tudor period ambiance. Mantle puts you there; right in with her characters (which is great, but can be hard going at times) whilst Fremantle tells a flowing story of her characters.
   
Thumbs up, then.  It'll remain upon my bookshelf this one (and space there is contested, so it is a measure of a book's worth to me, if I feel I need to find the space to retain it).

x

The Girl in the Glass Tower by Elizabeth Fremantle

(only one chapter in, but encouraged by what I've read so far)

Opening lines:

Is the hammering inside my head?

Tap, tap, tap, in the soft place beneath my temple, in the matter where my thoughts live. Something, someone tapping, wants to be heard, to escape.

It is a subtle and prolonged species of torture, this noise, reminding me of the impossibility of freedom.

I am the pane in the window overlooking the courtyard; I am cracked in two places but still manage to hold my form. Through the glass the world is distorted, divided into three parts, each with its own perspective, none of them quite true.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Sweet Sassy Molassy"

(Two women at a window, peering into the Intérieur room)

"He's insisting that he said, 'Make sure that you pack plenty of sun-screen, but I thought that he'd said icecream too!"

(Intérieur)

Cynthia sobbed and Gregory grimaced; with a full quart of clotted-cream spilled into the keyboard of their prototype laptop -- Windows '1865 was never going to reboot after this.

(White Oleander by Janet Fitch)

10 on the poignancy scale! This lady has a fine way with words.

Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you. Changes its mind. But hatred, now. That's something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It's hard or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but hatred cradles you. It's so soothing.

   -----

Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

----

What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.

----

The mind was so thin, barely a spiderweb, with all its fine thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs in its own importance. Watch how easily it unravels, evaporates under the first lick of pain.

-----
The reason we studied history was to find out why things were the way they were, how we got here. You could to anything you wanted to people who didn't know their history.

----

Love is a bedtime story, a teddy bear, familiar, one eye missing.

----
What was a weed, anyway. A plant nobody planted? A seed escaped from a traveler's coat, something that didn't belong? Was it something that grew better than what should have been there? Wasn't it just a word, weed, trailing its judgments. Useless, without value. Unwanted.

----
Beauty was my mother's law, her religion. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you were beautiful, as long as you did things beautifully. If you weren't, you just didn't exist.

-----

Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

So many more I could quote from this deliciously written novel.

A little testy?

Strumpet

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10 … er1050.jpg

Trumpet

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/10/ … 296242.jpg

I'll give the Goose Debacle a look. I can preview the first 6 chapters with the Amazon 'look inside' feature.

Meanwhile, I've just finished, 'Fatherland' by Robert Harris and I enjoyed it immensely. It'll be one of my all-time favorites, I'm sure of that.