Page 69 - Phonebox Magazine December 2012

Book Review By Oxfam Bookshop, Olney
Diana Athill has written several incisive memoirs beginning with ʻInstead of a Letterʼ - the story of how her fiancé broke off their engagement during the Second World War - which she also recounted in a recent television documentary. In her books she is ruthlessly honest about herself and others, this does not result in tabloid-style ʻscandalous revelationsʼ but in a kind of frankness that convinces you that she is telling you exactly what she thinks. To write an honest memoir, without self-deception is difficult, perhaps impossible, but Diana Athill comes as close as anybody to achieving it.
Stet by Diana Athill
and amusing – reading her book is like listening to a friend who just happens to know some very interesting people and has a gift for telling stories about them. The quality of her writing makes it easy to understand why, for fifty years she was regarded as the finest editor in London.
Stet is an entertaining picture of her working life at the publisher Andre Deutsch in the era when it was still possible to decide to publish a book on its merit, rather than simply because it would make money, an era before managerialism and marketing killed the creativity of almost a whole industry. Diana edited the fiction list at Deutsch and worked with writers such as Molly Keane, John Updike and Jean Rhys. On one level this is a book about books, but it is actually more about the people who made them and the need for personal as well as literary skills (both of which Diana Athill displays in abundance) if you were to get the best out of your authors.
And the title of this book? Let Diana's words explain and give you a taste of her style:
“. . . because I shall not be alive for much longer, and when Iʼm gone all the experiences stored in my head will be gone too . . . something in me squeaks ʻOh no – let at least some of it be rescued!ʼ It seems to be an instinctive twitch rather than a rational intention, but no less compelling for that.
Her writing is lucid and readable, her style candid, self-deprecating
All this book is, is the story of one old ex-editor who imagines that she will feel less dead if a few people read it.”
The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas
By a long-established printerʼs convention, a copy-editor wanting to rescue a deletion puts a row of dots under it and writes ʻStetʼ (let it stand) in the margin. This book is an attempt to ʻStetʼ some part of my experience in its original form . . .
Clearing out the family home after their fatherʼs death, Mair discovered a beautiful fine woollen shawl; colourful and delicately woven, it was a
life of a missionaryʼs wife at the beginning of the Second World War. The two stories run parallel until Mair comes toward the end of her quest, and we experience timeʼs intricate dovetailing.
Rosie Thomas weaves an intricate plot, with love affairs described in both past and present, some gentle, some dangerous. There is also a danger which strikes suddenly and disastrously. Her descriptions of Kashmir, the harsh conditions of the mission at Leh and the luxurious surrounds of Srinagar in the 1940s, are vividly colourful, reminiscent of the shawl after which the book is named. She also describes the extremes of the seasons; the snow which arrived early as Mair attempted to cross the mountain pass from Leh to the Vale of Kashmir with fellow tourists, contrasting with the stifling heat of summer. Her vivid writing holds the reader in thrall, making this one of those novels which you cannot put down, and yet do not want to finish! Thought-provoking as well as fascinating, it would be a good choice for a reading group, since there is much to discuss. It is also a good companion for a solitary reader on a December evening.
treasure she had never seen before.
ʻThatʼs Grandma Watkinsʼ shawl,ʼ her elder sister told her, and so she realized that it had once
belonged to the wife of a missionary who had spent much of her life in Kashmir. Intrigued by the mystery of how such prized possession
should have remained hidden for so long, Mair determines to travel to India and attempt to learn more about her Grandmother and the
history of the shawl.
As we follow Mairʼs explorations, the friends she meets, the blind alleys she goes down
before learning the truth, the author also introduces us to Nerys Watkins and the hard
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The books reviewed above are from Oxfam Books and Music, Olney, which sells donated books, records, CDs, tapes and music to raise money for Oxfam’s work in combating poverty around the world.
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Phonebox Magazine 69
Review by Sandra Metcalf
Review by Thelma Shacklady