I adored Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill. I started it with trepidation, knowing what strong reactions other bloggers had had to reading it, both positive and negative, but within a page or two I was in love with it. For those unfamiliar with it, it is the story of Susan Hill’s year spent rediscovering the books in her home (begun when she set out to find a copy of Howards End and instead stumbled upon countless books she had forgotten about) and her memories and ponderings on a lifetime spent reading and writing and moving in literary circles.
Writing about books and reading can be tricky. There are a million things that can sour you against the author of such books, the chief being their taste in reading material. I knew going into this that Hill was not a fan of Canadian (or Australian) lit but, honestly, I really could not care less. My national pride is not offended by her preferences, which she has every right to hold and express, and I appreciate her frankness, which is representative of the openness of the entire book. Agreement is not a prerequisite for enjoyment. We don’t agree about Austen either but, again, the world is not so black and white that it is divided into Good People aka Austen Fans and Bad People aka Not Austen Fans. And I do appreciate that she has attempted to understand Austen’s appeal and is able to express her disinterest in such a pleasant, articulate way:
Perhaps the nineteenth century, whose style of dress and architecture, design and manners, I find cold and distancing, is to blame for my inability to appreciate Austen, whose cool, ironic style is somehow all of a piece with that formality and porcelain veneer. Yes, there is wit, there are acute asides, there is a sharpness of observation and judgement, but I never feel empathy with, or closeness to, an Austen character. That may be because their author, their creator, discourages intimacy. She is herself politely distant, keeps me at arm’s length, is too private and reserved. I cannot get to know her and if I cannot do that, how can I like her or be interested in what she has to tell me about her characters and their situations? It is all too patterned, too much like one of those boring formal dances they performed, all too stylized. I want someone to break out of the elegant little drawing room circle and go mad. Lydia Bennet almost does it. (p. 96-97)
Hill is chatty and intimate in her writing style, each page filled with her simple, clear prose and her overwhelming affection for her subject. I knew nothing of Hill before reading this and had never read any of her books (having the impression that they are dark, ghoulish tales, the kind that bore me no end) so getting to know her in these pages was a delight. The result is a book that I could hardly bear to let go of when it came time to take a break from reading, the kind of book where after finishing a particularly wonderful chapter or resonant paragraph you hug it to yourself, trying to physically hold on to the last of that giddy feeling provoked by good writing. I had a library copy, which was particularly wrenching as I knew I would have to return it once I had finished with it. I, of course, went out and bought my own copy immediately after finishing (even before I’d returned the library copy).
I love the name dropping, the encounters with other writers and publishers. Other readers were put off by this but I adore it. I love that spark of recognition I feel when a familiar name appears on the page. Look! What are they doing here? Worlds and lives I once might have thought completely separate combine in the most wonderful way. Such appearances enlighten, enrich, and delight, serving to provide us readers with much richer portraits of all the individuals involved rather than flattering Hill’s vanity.
The tone Hill sets right from the opening pages is romantic and slightly dreamy, whisking the reader away into a world dominated by books and the bookishly-inclined, a paradise of sorts. She is not afraid to indulge in flights of fancy, conjuring up irresistible images that are both glamourous and cozy all at once:
Sleeper trains are the most romantic form of travel in the world, far more so that cruise ships once the epitome of romantic travel. I have taken sleepers across Europe and there is nothing, nothing in the world so exciting as waking in the night, drawing up the blind and finding oneself in the small hours at some remote mountain village station, where a couple of porters are smoking and watching the milk churns being loaded. ‘Domodossola’ says the sign. And the station is lit by a strange, dim light. It is a Graham Greene scene, or one out of an early Orson Welles movie, with someone sinister in a mac and trilby standing in the shadows, watching, waiting. Three hours later, wake again, and the blind snaps up to show Lake Montreux outside your window and children get on to the train for a few stops to school conveying bags of books – and skis. (p. 58-59)
But this book is also the pulpit from which she can preach to the masses about all the quirks and flaws other readers indulge in, outlining what, in her opinion, the proper way is to do things. Occasionally, I even agree with her. I cannot, I absolutely cannot concede that scribbling in the margins in the best way to appreciate a book but, even when I’m not in agreement with Hill, I love to hear how she makes her point. In urging readers to take their time with great novels, she is passionate and idealistic, if not fully persuading me then at least inspiring me to reconsider my current reading habits:
Everything I am reading during this year has so much to yield but only if I give it my full attention and respect it by reading slowly. Fast reading of a great novel will get us the plot. It will get us names, a shadowy idea of characters, a sketch of settings. It will not get us subtleties, small differentiations, depth of emotion and observation, multilayered human experience, the appreciation of simile and metaphor, any sense of context, any comparison with other novels, other writers. Fast reading will not get us cadence and complexities of style and language. It will not get us anything that enters not just the conscious mind but the unconscious. It will not allow the book to burrow down into our memory and become part of ourselves, the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom and vicarious experience which helps to form us as complete human beings. It will not develop our awareness or add to the sum of our knowledge and intelligence. Read parts of a newspaper quickly or an encyclopedia entry, or a fast-food thriller, but do not insult yourself or a book which has been created with its author’s painstakingly acquired skill and effort, by seeing how fast you can dispose of it. (p. 171-172)
And if I hadn’t already been in love with this book, this passage near the end would have won me over completely, echoing my own thoughts exactly:
Since our children’s books were first bought, fiction for young readers has become more and more issue-led. Divorce, step-parents, drugs, alcohol, early sex, knife crime, foster care child abuse, unemployment, gang warfare, AIDS, terminal illness…you name it, there is a novel for children about it. But all children are anxious, adult life contains much that is ugly and unhappy, unpleasant or down-right bad. Why introduce them to that too early, through books, which can be such a force for enjoyment, imaginative enrichment, fun, excitement, adventure, magic? Realism comes home soon enough and many children have too much anguish to cope with in their everyday lives as it is. Their books can be one corner of life that remains untainted by the troubles brought upon their heads by unthinking, unloving adults. I am glad mine remained ignorant of much that is polluted, cruel, ugly, hurtful, wrong as long as possible (which is not, after all, very long, in the scheme of things) and that their books were wholesome, enriching, enlivening, enjoyable, loveable and, for the most part, were about worlds in which they could happily, innocently escape. (p. 196-197)
The real, intoxicating pleasure of this book is how many other books it leads you too. I had never heard of many of these books before. I know nothing more about most of them or their authors that what Hill has shared. And that’s wonderful, magical even. There is so much promise with a list of unknowns, so much potential to entertain and excite. Here’s the list I scribbled down while reading, including some titles that were already on my TBR list but which I’m now even more excited about, but mostly books that are completely new to me:
Chatwin, Bruce – Utz, In Patagonia, On the Black Hill
Tomalin, Claire – biographies of Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy
Howard, Elizabeth Jane – Something in Disguise, After Julius, The Sea Change
Fitzgerald, Penelope – The Blue Flower
Clark, Alan – diaries
Kilvert, Francis (Rev) – diaries
Strong,Roy– diaries
Woolf, Virginia– A Writer’s Diary
Gray, Simon – The Smoking Diaries
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott
Ertz, Susan – Madame Claire
Simpson, Helen – Four Bare Legs in a Bed
The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s
Bell, Quentin – Biography of Virginia Woolf
Briggs, Julia – Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life
Lehmann, John – Virginia Woolf and her World
Bell, Vanessa – Sketches in Pen and Ink: A Bloomsbury Notebook
Sebald, W.G. – The Rings of Saturn
Mayor, F.M. – The Rector’s Daughter
Heaney, Seamus and Ted Hughes (editors) – The Rattle Bag
Cecil, David – Library Looking Glass: A Personal Anthology
Hare, David – Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy’s View
Wesker, Arnold – plays
1662 Book of Common Prayer (Everyman’s Library Edition)
Crewe, Quentin – Letters from India
Peto, Nick – Peto’s Progress
Dickens, Charles – Our Mutual Friend
Jansson, Tove – The Finn Family Moomintroll
Mayne, Michael – A Year Lost and Found, Learning to Dance, This Sunrise of Wonder
Fermor, Patrick Leigh – A Time to Keep Silence
Howards End is on the Landing is a marvelous, wonderful book, the best ‘book about books’ that I have yet read. There is so much here to revel in, to delve deeper into and to ponder, that I’m already looking forward to future rereadings.
I too loved this book which in a way was the textbook I would have liked to have had when I was studying English Literature at university level in France. Passionate, incomplete, but the kind that propels you to read more and more.
I hadn’t read any of Susan Hill’s books either, but I found this one equally interesting as ‘On Writing’ by Steven King, another writer whose books I will never, ever read. Beyond the unavoidable bias, there is something intensely attractive in discovering what inspires authors, even in genres that one may not be interested in.
I get inspiration from your blog, too. I subscribed a while ago and it’s become a feature of my inbox.
What a wonderful textbook this would make or, rather, what a delightful class it would be that would use this as a textbook!
I’m interested to hear that you’re a fan of King’s On Writing. Because I have no interest in King’s other books, I have rather ignored this title but it sounds like I should give it a try!
I am so pleased that you are enjoying the blog! It is always flattering and exciting to hear that other people like it.
Wonderful review of a book I adored. Yes… I didn’t always agree with her either… but who wants to agree with everything that is said or written? Boring. Your lovely review has made want to go and get my copy and reread it. So I will.
I am so pleased to have inspired a reread! Glad you liked the review!
I found this book a bit “curate’s egg.” But there are certainly some good books on that list you made. I love Roy Strong’s Diaries (but then, I’m a nosy person – letters and diaries are the very life blood of such people!) and Elizabeth Jane Howard couldn’t write an ill-structured sentence if she tried.
Glad to hear that you echo Hill’s recommendations of Strong’s diaries and Elizabeth Jane Howard!
Great review of this book! I, too, enjoyed the name-dropping and stories of other literary people. And, of course, made a reading list (how could you not?). 🙂 So glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks Susan, I’m so pleased you liked the review. Making the reading list while going through this was (sadly?) the most fun I’ve had in a while!
Not sadly, not at all! 😉
The Feminine Middlebrow Novel by Nicola Humble is a wonderful resource – but will make your reading list triple in size.
I thought everyone came away from HEiotL wanting to read The Paper House – I certainly did!
I’ve been meaning to read The Blue Flower for ages. Let me know if you ever want to read it in tandem.
A wonderful review that has reminded me how much I want to read this – I need to see out a copy!
I hope you’re able to find a copy soon and that you enjoy this as much as I did!
I read another of Hill’s books (one of the creepy ones) earlier this year and liked it a lot. I eyed this one but evetually put it back but I think I’ve had a change of heart.
I doubt I’m ever likely to read any of Hill’s fictional works but I will never give up trying to convince other readers to try this! I hope, if you decide to read the book (which I of course hope you will), that you enjoy it as much as I have!
Great review. I loved it too. I have my copy handy and keep going back and reading in snippets. Wouldn’t you love to wander through her bookshelves? I would like to read her books about her farm and home but they seem to be out of print.
I would LOVE to have her bookshelves at my disposal! I would love to know what other titles she has, the ones that weren’t mentioned in the book!
Oh, Claire, this is one of the loveliest reviews I have read in a long time – probably because it is exactly the reaction I had to the book! I adored every moment, and could hardly bear to be parted from it – but made myself read it slowly, because I couldn’t cope with the idea of finishing it. I re-read it last year, and it was just as joyful an experience then.
I believe some of Hill’s own fictional works are ghoulish, but I haven’t read those – do seek out In the Springtime of the Year for a sad, but not dark, read – the best book about grief I’ve ever read.
I’m so glad you liked this review Simon! I wish I had had the restraint to read this book slowly – I did try and was able to drag it out over three days, mostly because I stopped so many times to write down passages I loved. I’m so pleased to hear that it stands up to rereading!
In the Springtime of the Year was the only other Hill title that I had earmarked as sounding interesting, so I’m happy to hear your endorsement of it!
I do have the joy of knowing that one of my books is amongst her shelves somewhere – I lent it to her and she lost it, so it’s in that house somewhere!
In thirty or forty years I hope it will be you writing a memoir of this type, including name dropping of authors who have lost books you’ve lent them!
I started reading this a couple of months ago and was put off by the name-dropping; however, I was also going through a really bad patch so the timing may have been off. It’s true, I shouldn’t abandon a book based on the first chapter. I should really give this another try when I’m in a better mood. It sounds like there is so much in there I would appreciate, especially all the book suggestions!
I really should follow Hill’s example and read nothing but my own books for a year — HA! I’d have to stop reading blogs and going to the library, and I know that will never happen. I’d just end up adding more and more books to the TBR list.
What a great review. This was one of my favorite books of last year – like you, I could hardly bear to put it down, and like you I was reading a library copy, one that I refused to return until my own arrived. From Hill’s reading list I’ve read & enjoyed Rev. Francis Kilvert’s diaries (which remind me of a rural Trollope novel) and Patrick Leigh Fermor, who is a luminous writer. I’ve also now read several of Hill’s mysteries, which are really well done.
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I loved the first book but haven’t yet dared to acquired this one. I added so many novels to my tbr list after Howard’s End is on the Landing that I can’t afford to read this one so close to Christmas.
Doesn’t Howard’s End Is on the Landing have the most gorgeous cover? I keep it bedside, on my comfort reading shelf, so that I can see it and read snippets as needed. I think you’d like Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles.