stargazer

Six Degrees Of Separation – From Second Place to Assembly

September has arrived, summer is officially over and I am back with my favourite meme.

Six Degrees of Separation is hosted by Kate, who each month decides on a starting book, from which everyone builds a chain of six books. Feel free to join in and post your link here.

Starting point: Second Place by Rachel Cusk

This month, we start with Second Place, which has been longlisted for The Booker Prize 2021. Some reviewers have said this is a book they admired rather than enjoyed. “Pretentious” has also been mentioned in connection with Second Place. I feel, I might have a similar sentiment and don’t mean to pick it up.

1. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Second Place can be interpreted as a reference to the narrator’s guesthouse, which she uses to house visiting artists. The Ramsay family in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse also owns a second place, where they go in the summer with visitors including writers and artists. Admittedly, it took two attempts, but I ended up loving it.

2. Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie

In To the Lighthouse, Woolf uses the character Lily, who is a painter, to express some of her own views on the creative process and on being a female artist. Agatha Christie has similarly used one of her characters, Ariadne Oliver, to communicate her views on writers and the writing process. I find Mrs. Oliver a great character. She appears in quite a few novels including Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.

3. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Ariadne Oliver’s appearance in Mrs. McGinty’s Dead relates to one of her books being adapted to a theatre play. An altogether frustrating experience for the good Mrs. Oliver. Nicholas Nickleby’s brush with theatre is more positive. He travels around with a theatre group for a while and becomes quite successful. As usual Dickens comes up with a broad range of colourful characters.

4. The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Lots of humour, colourful characters bordering to caricatures, melodrama and unlikely coincidences. That is something you would expect in a Dickens novel and you may be disappointed if it doesn’t appear. However, I was quite surprised to find these ingredients in John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies. That didn’t prevent me from enjoying it.

5. Summerwater by Sarah Moss

A main theme in The Heart’s Invisible Furies is lack of acceptance because of who you are or what you do. This is also a theme in Summerwater, which takes place in a holiday cabin park in Scotland. A family with Eastern European roots is exposed to various degrees of xenophobia from the other occupants in the cabin park.

6. Assembly by Natasha Brown

The narrator in Natasha Brown’s Assembly, a young black female, is also struggling to be accepted for what she is. Like Summerwater, Assembly has a rather dramatic conclusion, even if it’s of a more abstract character. Many readers predicted Assembly to be on this year’s Booker longlist, but opposite Second Place, it didn’t make the cut.

So there you have it. This month’s chain included a mix of classics and contemporary fiction, with no less than three of the books being written in the stream of consciousness style. Geographically we didn’t travel far and mostly stayed in the UK and Ireland. Where did your chain take you?

36 comments

  1. I love how you’ve hopped from one book to the next, a really seamless chain. And especially loved the route to Nickleby. Superb selection!

    • Aw thanks! πŸ˜ƒ It was one of these chains, which more or less materialised of its own accord without much thinking involved.

  2. I’ve read two of those books – The Heart’s Invisible Furies, which I enjoyed, and To the Lighthouse, which I didn’t get on with at all. I love the Christie novels with Ariadne Oliver, so I’m looking forward to reading Mrs McGinty’s Dead!

    • I find Woolf an exceedingly difficult author to read. But once I put in the effort, I do appreciate her. With Mrs Dalloway it took three attempts to even finish the book and with To The Lighthouse, it was only on my second read, I felt the magic. Mrs McGinty’s Dead is a great read and the scenes with Ariadne Oliver are so much fun!

  5. What a great chain ,I haven’t read any Christie with Ariadne Oliver but you’ve encouraged me to start with her in my resolution to read more AC!

    • I think, Ariadne Oliver is so much fun. She adds a nice contrast to the organised and rather pompous Poirot. I’ve heard people saying that some of her personality has similarities to Christie’s own, I don’t know if it’s true.

  6. The Sarah Moss has certainly divided reviewers, and I must read it to make my own mind up. I’d already ordered Assembly from the library. And here’s a John Boyne I haven’t read. Busy times ahead!

    • I think Moss has a quite unique writing style and besides from the last chapter, nothing at all goes on in Summerwater. It’s all about the character’s introspective thoughts about big and small things in life. I loved it, but can easily see, it might not be for everyone.

    • Thanks! πŸ˜€ Yes, I remember you are doing this big Poirot project, which is very brave of you. Hope you enjoyed Mrs. McGinty!

  8. Excellent chain. I love seeing how people think when they put these together and I love your connections. The only one I have read is The Heart’s Invisible Furies. Summerwater sounds like one I would find a good read.

    • Thanks Carla! Yes half of the fun is seeing the chains of other bloggers! I’m always amazed about the creativity shown with this meme. I loved Summerwater but apparently it’s not for everyone.

  9. Greatly enjoyed your links. I’m not an Agatha Christie reader, but that cover is beautiful.

    I loved the link to Nicholas Nickleby, and then your “However, I was quite surprised to find these ingredients in John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies. That didn’t prevent me from enjoying it.? My reaction, as a Dickens lover, was, why would it! I have only read a few Dickens but what I’ve read I’ve loved, and I do intend to read more. I have my eyes, for some reason, on Our mutual friend and Pickwick papers.

    • Oh no, you are not a Christie reader! Just kidding, of course we can’t all like the same books. I’ve always loved crime fiction, which probably explain my fondness of Christie, who in my view is the queen of crime. πŸ˜‰

      Haha, you are absolutely right, there are no reasons why I shouldn’t enjoy the Dickens qualities of The Heart’s Invisible Furies. It just took me by surprise. It was my first John Boyne and for some reason, I expected a very different writing style

  11. So far, yours is the first chain that uses the meaning of ‘second place’ as Cusk uses it.

    Loved Heart’s Invisible Furies (a favourite the year I read it) but didn’t get on with Summerwater – I think I’m missing something in Moss’s writing – others rave, but I find it a bit flat.

    • Apparently, you are not the only one who didn’t get on with Moss’ writing in Summerwater, it seems to be quite divisive. I loved The Heart’s Invisible Furies as well even if it turned out to be quite different from what I expected.

  12. A great mix! Out of your list, I’ve only read Nicholas Nickleby. I’ve been tempted to read Virginia Wolf several times but never got around to it.

    • Thanks! To be honest I found Woolf a difficult author to read and I’ve tried in vain to read her books several times, without getting very far. But when it occasionally clicks it’s very good and she speaks to me in a way very few authors can.

    • Thanks Lashaan! I always forget a lot of details, but apparently some of them stick.😁 Also, I mostly include books, I’ve read relatively recently to remind myself of them.

  16. Great chain, Stargazer! You’ve surprised me with your link between Dickens and Boyne – I’d never have expected that from Boyne. That said, I’ve never read anything of his. Isn’t it foolish how we (well me at any rate) develop these assumptions about books and/or writers with no personal experience to substantiate them! I love Ariadne as a character in the tv series and keep meaning to read a book featuring her. Thanks for the reminder 😊

    • Thanks Sandra! Well, I would say Boyne surprised me with his link to Dickens. 😁 I know one shouldn’t have preconceived ideas about an author, but I guess it’s rare to find a modern author, who includes this combination of elements in their books. I expected dark, gritty with less melodrama and more subtlety. But I thought it was an excellent book and loved that the humour counteracted all the drama and struggles of the protagonist. Ariadne is so much fun and whenever she talks about her writing process and relation to her characters, I always imagine it’s Christie herself speaking. What she says certainly applies to Christie’s own books.

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