Leavers' Post

It's our final post of the year, and sadly, at the end of this term, we're saying goodbye to Dr Field, Mr Madden, Mr Gazet, Ms Malhotra, Mr Thompson, Mr Roberts, Ms Trepanier and Ms French: but - with typical generosity - they all paused while packing up their books to answer the book blog's leavers' questionnaire.  

What were you reading when you were a teenager?

Dr Field: Reading was a real struggle when I was a teenager, I’ve always found words to be quite tricky but I love stories. I had to read Pride and Prejudice and To Kill a Mocking Bird because they were our GCSE set texts and I loved them – gaining confidence by being made to read books in school really opened up reading for me and now I am rarely without a book.

Mr Madden: I wasn’t a great reader in early adolescence but my love for books was rekindled when I was twelve when my dad passed me down his copy of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. I watched the Richard Burton movie shortly afterwards and was then hooked on Le Carré novels for most of my teens.

Mr Gazet: A Horseman Riding By R F Delderfield

Ms Malhotra: There are two books that come to mind. The first is Beloved, written by Tony Morrison, and the second is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. I attended a secondary school in America which had a very strong literature program, and it’s difficult to pick only these two! I think these writings stand out to me because of the key experiences and lessons I was privileged enough to engage with during the course of my study. Beloved showed me the inexplicable depth and emotion one can invoke through words and memories (half a year did not feel sufficient to explore it fully). The Things They Carried, written from the perspective of a soldier in the Vietnam War, is presented to the reader as a series of short stories. It’s hard to explain how these books impacted me, but they are the ones that I have carried beyond my teenage years.

Mr Roberts: Not much!  I think some Dickens, sparked by doing Great Expectations for Eng Lit

Ms Trepanier: I would say I was pretty omnivorous as a reader and read a lot of things I felt I ‘should’ alongside some pretty pulpy stuff (I remember carrying Twilight and Anna Karenina in the same school bag… needless to say, this did my back no favours). The books which made the greatest impression on me, though, were probably the classic Victorian Gothic novels like Wuthering Heights. I found this kind of book very dramatic, which appealed to me, but they also lent themselves to literary theory, which I was slowly beginning to become interested in. For instance, I found the idea that Heathcliff was perhaps a mixed race character, which is now quite standard as a reading, incredibly energising. It completely changed the book for me!

Ms French: After watching the first film, I became obsessed with the Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins. I remember staying up all night to finish off the last book so I wasn’t still reading it when I was supposed to be revising for my for mocks.

What are you planning to read this holiday?

Dr Field: I am currently reading Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain - I love wandering around outdoors, especially amongst mountains, and this reminds me how wonderful the Cairngorms are. 

I’m also dipping into The Pathless Forest by Chris Thorogood, who works at the Oxford Botanical Gardens…it’s an adventure book and an ode to large, ugly, stinky flowers.

Mr Madden: Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is at the top of my list. I read some of his previous books and found his takes on the issues impacting teenage mental health really compelling. I like the idea the idea that children need play and independent exploration to thrive.

Mr Gazet: Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Ms Malhotra: I have always been fascinated by the field of medical humanities - that is, combining medicine, art and literature into a cohesive subject. There are certain books that fit this field, such as Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm. I am excited to start reading The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk this holiday (the cover is actually a Matisse painting). It is written from the perspective of a Dutch psychiatrist now based in Boston. The book strikes a balance between scientific jargon and narrative-style writing to explore our current understanding of trauma and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Mr Roberts: More Booker prize winners – I am trying to go back and read all past winners.

 

Ms Trepanier: I have actually never read any Zadie Smith – to my embarrassment. Several people have now recommended On Beauty to me in particular, so I’d love to get around to it.

Ms French: Eve by Cat Bohannon. Cat describes how the female body has driven human evolution – I’m really looking forward to it.

What/who is your all-time favourite book/writer?

Dr Field: This question is too hard – I tend to love what I’m reading when I’m reading it – so its impossible to say

Mr Madden: I’m not sure I have a favourite writer but Catch 22 by Joseph Heller is probably my favourite book. 

It’s not so much about the story as it about the fact I have very fond memories of reading it. It was at a time when I reading almost entirely non-fiction and it reminded me of how fun, engaging and occasionally absurd a good story can be. 

Mr Gazet: Evelyn Waugh. He can go effortlessly between high comedy and tragedy at the turn of a page.

Ms Malhotra: Douglas Adams is one of my favourite writers. He has such an engaging style - one that seamlessly blends intelligence and wit. He is one of the few authors who makes me laugh out loud while I read!

Mr Roberts: William Boyd or Ian McEwan or Michael Morpurgo (read to my children)

Ms Trepanier: This is tough! I almost always pick the last thing I read… In this vein, I am very big on Howards End at the moment. It’s such a great chamber piece but also feels very contemporary to me in a number of ways. 

Without wading too far into politics, I think the very vexed triangle that the novel produces - between a bright but underprivileged young man, a personally decent but professionally deplorable capitalist and some well-intentioned but naïve university types – still feels like a kind of social geometry all over Britain. The prose is also always fantastic.

Ms French: None spring to mind from adulthood so it’s got to be Enid Blyton. I loved the Faraway Tree when I was little.

Who’s your favourite fictional character?

Dr Field: This changes a lot – today my favourite character is Harriet Vane, later Lady Peter Wimsey – Clever and fearless; both in the face of danger and of societal norms. A woman ahead of her time.

Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane, with Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey (BBC)

Mr Madden: Not very sophisticated by its probably back to Le Carré and ‘George Smiley’.  I love the description of him provided by an article in The Guardian: 'the sort of spy Britain believes it ought to have: a bit shabby, academic, basically loyal and sceptical of the enthusiasms of his political masters.'

Alec Guinness as George Smiley (BBC)

Mr Gazet: Albert Campion

Ms Malhotra: Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I’m not sure if he’s my favourite fictional character (here’s to answering the question), but he is the one I find most fascinating. He delivers some captivating monologues on modern science.

Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park 

Mr Roberts: Harry Potter!

Ms Trepanier: This is also tough! As a narrator, I think Cassandra Mortmain in I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is always a favourite. I also really adore any Austen heroine (apart from Fanny in Mansfield Park). 

Ms French: “I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed—or worse, expelled.” Hermione Granger is a legend.

Do you have a favourite word/favourite line from a book?

Dr Field: 'Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come see my shining

 palace built upon the sand!' (Edna St Vincent Millay – 'Second Fig')

Mr Madden: 'A nice old grandma bakes a pie. It smells so good – oh me, oh my! But dear oh dear, I have to say… that pie is stolen clean away!'  It’s from a kid’s book called Oh Me, Oh My, a Pie! by Jan Fearley. My daughter made us read it every night for about two years when she was just starting to read and it never got old. We still quote it to each other all the time. It’s a nice reminder of special times with her and the fun of discovering reading all over again.

Ms Malhotra: 'I am sometimes not sure which is the more remarkable: that life lives up to great paintings, or that great paintings live up to life.' - Patrick Bringley, All the Beauty in the World.

Mr Thompson: The Lord of the Rings has earned the laurels it has been given throughout the years. As I prepare to step away from St. Paul’s (and London more broadly), I have become increasingly reminded that – like many things – I feel Tolkien perfectly describes the feelings I have about the uncertainty that lies ahead for me.  In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf leaves a poem for Frodo describing Aragorn. The poem, known as the Riddle of the Strider, contains one of the most famous lines in The Lord of the Rings, and one that is particularly resonant with me at this moment in my life: 

When you’re fresh out of university and have just completed an incredible experience in a beautiful city with some of the most amazing people you’ve ever met, it’s easy to forget that life includes a lot of wandering. That doesn’t mean you’re lost, even if it feels that way sometimes. I will miss St. Paul’s, and the people here, as far as I wander away from it. However, I will not be lost: my love for this place and the values that I have developed here will guide me, and the professional mentorship and friendship I have been gifted with will carry me through the struggles ahead. As Tolkien writes, 'deep roots are not reached by the frost', and my roots in this city will remain even if my life grows cold. That’s an important thing to remember, and I’m grateful to Tolkien for putting it so eloquently.

Mr Roberts: The Venomous Lumpsucker (also the title of the book)

Ms Trepanier: My favourite opening is the beginning of One Hundred Years of Solitude for its acrobatic use of tense: 'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.' 

My favourite ending is always the final line of The Pursuit of Love. It’s less verbally impressive, but here quite a silly  character nicknamed ‘The Bolter’ (because she has ‘bolted’ from every single romantic relationship) in a single line undoes every certainty the rest of the novel appears to have established. Could the main character have found true love? Like the Fool in King Lear, the Bolter is suddenly the wisest figure of all: ‘One always thinks that. Every, every time.’ It’s a bold note to end a romance novel on and gives the word ‘Pursuit’ in the title a new sadness for me every, every time, too.

Ms French: You are a goddam cheetah  

If you had to recommend one book that everyone should read, what would it be?

Dr Field: Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker fame) and Mark Carwardine

Mr Madden: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is probably the book I’ve read that caused me to most significantly reflect on how I see the world but I’m nervous about suggesting anything too weighty. I think there were times in my life when I was put off reading because I felt I should be reading very serious works or well known novels, that to be honest, my brain often struggles to connect with.  So I think people should just read whatever they want because I do believe there’s great benefit in a bit of quiet time with a good book. 

Mr Gazet: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Ms Malhotra: I would recommend Educated by Tara Westover. It is a fascinating memoir - one you can’t put down. I don’t want to say too much other than definitely give it a read when you can!

Mr Roberts: There is no Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee

Ms Trepanier: The book I often find myself wishing more people had read, because it’s so brilliant and I want to chat about it more, is The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. 

While the title feels a bit stodgy, it’s actually an amazing late 19th century Gothic novel and showcases Hogg’s imagination. It’s also my favourite Edinburgh novel (the city where I grew up); I think if you visit Edinburgh, it’s the very best literary companion. 

Ms French: Work like a Woman by Mary Portas. Portas explains the advantages to working “like women” in the modern workplace, combatting the assumptions for what values you need to be successful. It’s fantastic.

Many thanks to all the contributors for their thoughtful responses and excellent suggestions, as well as everything they've brought to our SPS community during their time here: you've all been amazing, and best wishes for life beyond St Paul's!