Miss, Educated

'Educated' by Tara Westover (Penguin Random House, 2018)

With schools still closed or partially closed due to Covid-19, education is back in the headlines.  At first, it seemed like a dream scenario for many students, but the novelty soon wore off, and many are now realising the long term damage of a disrupted education.  Someone who knows more than most about the challenges of catching up on missed classroom time is Tara Westover, author of memoir 'Educated'.

Tara Westover grew up in rural Idaho, USA, the youngest of seven children in a family dominated by her father.  His twin obsessions were becoming as self-sufficient as possible in preparation for the end of the world, and avoiding contact with the authorities.  As such, while the children didn't go to school or see doctors, they learned to preserve food, use firearms and hide resources such as fuel around the family homestead.  They worked as his crew in their scrap yard, often risking life and limb in an environment where health and safety amounted to decaying steel toe-capped boots and not much else.  When accidents occur, the children are treated by their herbalist mother.  As she grows up, Tara's relationship with her siblings changes as they each begin living lives of their own.  While Tyler shows her there may be hope beyond the farmstead, the mercurial Shawn leaves her broken and doubting her own mind.  When Tara herself finally decides to pursue formal education, she manages to overcome her father's opposition, but, when challenged by life in an alien outside world, will she flee and return to the familiarity of home?

Killing Me Softly

I've just finished 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro, a book which has really got you talking on Twitter!

Set in an imaginary late 1990s Britain, 'Never Let Me Go' tells the story of three friends; the devious Ruth, child-like Tommy and contemplative Kathy, all former inmates of Hailsham, a boarding school with almost mythical status among their peers.  At the age of 32, Kathy has become a carer and reflects on the truths and lies which have had such a major impact on all their lives, many rooted, like their friendship, in their formative years at Hailsham under the guardianship of the authoritative Miss Emily and the conflicted Miss Lucy.

This book is a lot better than the previous paragraph makes it sound, but I daren't write more as I don't want to give anything away!

'Never Let Me Go' is the least science fiction-y science fiction book I've ever read.  I really didn't think it was science fiction until quite a way into the book, which just goes to show how daft labelling by genre really is.  There are two stories going on here - that of Kathy and her friends and that of the role they and others like them play in wider society.  The book's strength is its subtlety, in that it's not about a big technological idea, it's about the people who have to live with the consequences of it.  Ishiguro remains focussed and faithful to the human element throughout, so, despite a persistent sense that something isn't quite right, the science fiction is really only drip fed to the reader when it's necessary for the personal narrative.

By the end of the book, you realise that this is story is full of enough thought provoking allegory to keep any book group discussing it for many years.  Animal rights, what makes us human, innocence and childhood are just a few themes that spring to mind.  If this book isn't on the English Literature syllabus already, it really should be.

As soon as I got to the end of this book, I was ready to turn back to the first page and read it again.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it!) I do have one or two other ones to read first, but I'm sure I will return to 'Never Let Me Go' in the future.  In the meantime, this is a story that will live up to its name.

Now, what next...

Dangerous Liaisons

Arrragh!  I've been trying to decide what I want to say about 'Notes on a Scandal' by Zoe Heller for hours now and I keep going round in circles.  It's driving me nuts.  Have written at least four versions of this so far and it's getting silly.  Fingers crossed for version number five...

The final book I finished last week was 'Notes on a Scandal' by Zoe Heller.  I really enjoyed the film version of this story and hoped that the source material would be just as good, if not better.

'Notes on a Scandal'
by Zoe Heller
(Viking/Penguin Group, 2003)

'Notes on a Scandal' tells the story of pottery teacher Sheba Hart and her affair with underage pupil Steven Connolly in the words of her colleague and eventual close friend Barbara Covett.  Without Sheba's knowledge and intending to 'set the record straight', Barbara puts pen to paper to record what Sheba has told her and what Barbara herself has seen and heard.  As Barbara describes the complex relationships surrounding Sheba, it becomes clear that the women are not a natural partnership and Sheba may not be the only one guilty of an inappropriate obsession.

The more I think about this book, the more my head hurts.  Barbara acts a bit like both a filter and a funnel - she's clearly an unreliable narrator only reporting things to suit her life view, but she also gradually picks off the extended network of characters we meet at the beginning of the book until it's just her and Sheba against the world.  As such, the reader can't take things at face value and has to get as much as possible from characters when they appear as they may never be seen again!  Consequently, I feel like I don't know what to think and as though I could easily have missed something very significant without even realising it.

I also think the book could have done with some notes of its own as an introduction.  'Notes on a Scandal' seems to pick up on the particular Zeitgeist of 2003, when it was published.  That was the year of the Soham murders trial and new UK legislation to do with sexual offences, so child safeguarding was quite a hot topic in the media at the time.  I had to look this up afterwards and knowing that before I started reading would have added a whole new layer to the book.  The scandal is assumed to be Sheba's affair, but is the book also a lesson about looking for danger away from the obvious?  For all her faults, Sheba didn't intend to harm Connolly and he is portrayed as the more active instigator of the relationship.  Sheba could have just as easily become obsessed with a colleague or someone she bumped into down the shops, so why couldn't the vastly more predatory Barbara also be a threat to pupils as well as colleagues?


Comparing the book and the film, I think I've let myself down a bit by watching one before reading the other.  The film creates a creeping sense of doom because it has a chronological narrative structure which follows the timeline of events.  The book, however, starts at the end, which makes it much harder to create any sort of suspense, especially if like me you know roughly what happens.  I think the film also improves on the book in other ways, but I don't want to go into to much detail for fear of spoilers.  I preferred the ending of the book, but think the film just captures the sense of menace much better.  After all, it's Barbara's job as the book's narrator to make everything seem nice and normal.

On the whole, I think that this book was a lot more subtle than I expected.  Pretty much as soon as I'd finished it I decided that I'd need to read it again at least once to see if I could 'get it' a second time around.  I'm assuming it's just me being lazy though - it could as easily be that that not being in the 2003 Zeitgeist means there's implicit references that I will never get.  I don't think I'll know until I try reading it again.


The book feels so subtle and manipulative that it's a credit to its author, but it's like a pale imitation which hints at the anger, passion and complexity portrayed so well in the film.  It's thought to be unusual, but perhaps this is an instance where the film actually is better than the book.  I can think of other examples - 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk springs to mind - but maybe these are the exceptions which prove the rule.

So, if you haven't read it, give it a go, then watch the film.  If you have watched the film, you might want to read it, but you might be better off with something else.  On the theme of obsession, I'd recommend the first three Ripley novels of Patricia Highsmith.

Now, time to choose something else from the shelves!