Lolly Willowes or, The Loving Huntsman (1926) by Sylvia Townsend Warner

A while back I mentioned here that I thought it might be fun to read a few books from 1926 in order to contrast the experience of reading books written 100 years ago to that of reading what is being published today. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner is the novel I chose to kick off this project, and that may have been a mistake because this one really didn't work for me. (Thank goodness that, at about 230 pages, it's relatively short.) But as it turns out, I'm the one on the outside looking in when it comes to the critical and public response to Lolly Willowes or, The Loving Huntsman.

Warner had an instant hit on her hands with this debut novel. The novel was praised by both the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Times itself. France's Prix Femina committee shortlisted it for its own literary prize, and it was even favorably compared by some to the work of Jane Austen. Interestingly, too, Lolly Willowes became the first Book-of-the-Month Club selection in the United States. So I'm definitely in the distinct minority when it comes to my level of appreciation for this one. 

Laura Willowes (nicknamed "Lolly" by her young niece) has always been more interested in reading and plants than she has been in eligible young bachelors. So, having already lost her mother, she was unprepared for how drastically her life would change with the death of her father. Suddenly, Lolly finds herself dependent upon her elder brother and his wife Caroline. That means leaving the family estate, moving to London, and becoming the duty-bound "Aunt Lolly" helping raise her nieces for the next twenty years.

But such a life was never going to be enough for Lolly, so bring on an eventual pact with the devil and witchcraft as she seeks to claim a life all her own, one not doled out by the men in her life. 

"Is it true that you can poke the fire with a stick of dynamite in perfect safety?...even if it isn't true of dynamite, it's true of women. But they know they are dynamite, and long for the concussion that may justify them. Some may get religion, then they're all right, I expect. But for the others, for so many, what can there be but witchcraft? That strikes them real, even if other people still find them quite safe and usual, and go on poking with them, they know in their hearts how dangerous, how incalculable, how extraordinary they are. Even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it's there - ready!" 

 

Sylvia Townsend Warner 

Lolly Willowes is recognized as an early feminist novel and, as such, it has stayed in print for 100 years now - no small achievement. It doesn't particularly work for me, I think, because of its satirical take on the state of women in the early twentieth century. I often struggle with satire as a genre, and it's happened again with Lolly Willowes. I can't emphasize enough, however, that my reaction to the novel should discourage no one from giving it a chance. Women, in particular, may love it. 

Eifelheim (2006) by Michael Flynn

 

Michael Flynn's decision in 2006 to turn his 1986 novella, Eifelheim, into a full-fledged novel turned out to be a brilliant decision. The novel, which tells the story of a starship crash near a Black Forest village in 1348 - during the Black Death plague - was so well received that it won a nomination for the 2007 Hugo Award for best novel. The novel was fully embraced by the science fiction world, and it should have been, but what makes it truly special for me is how seamlessly Eifelheim blends first rate historical fiction with a story of grasshopper-like aliens crashing into the lives of an old world village that still very much believes in demons and evil spirits.  

The basic premise of the novel is this: in 1348, a spaceship carrying a few dozen aliens crashes into the Black Forest within walking distance of a typically isolated village of the time. It would have been terribly easy for this encounter to have gone bad for both sides except for the efforts of Father Dietrich, a kindly scholar of a priest, and the Krenken leader's willingness to listen to the counsel of one of his youngest crew members. The already isolated village becomes even more isolated than it was before the plague began to take its toll on the surrounding villages, ensuring that Father Dietrich was able to keep his visitors a secret for many months. 

Eventually the two groups began to get to know - and appreciate - each other in ways that surprised all of them.

Adding to the fun, Flynn tells his story in alternating timelines: one in which the villagers and the aliens are learning to live with each other, and a second in which a modern day couple (he is a historian, she is a physicist) try to figure out why the village of Eifelheim, despite its advantageous geographical location, is never resettled after the Black Death. What they discover has the potential to change human history.

Author Michael Flynn uses this premise to turn the novel into one of the smartest science fiction novels I've read in a while. His presentation of medieval life has a genuine feel about it, and Father Dietrich is just one of several memorable characters playing key roles in the story. But the most intriguing thing about Eifelheim is how two such devise cultures, one well beyond Einstein's level of scientific thinking, the other limited by a strict interpretation of medieval Christian theology, end up impacting each other so greatly. Flynn's main characters are sympathetic and believable, and that allows Flynn to explore questions like the conflict between faith and reason, along with the all too often unforeseen consequences of good intentions leading to devastating tragedy for all concerned. 

I came into 2026 with the intention of reading more science fiction, both the classics and the latest scifi novels, and discovering a book like Eifelheim makes me happy that I did. 

The Camp of the Saints (1973) - Jean Raspail

 

The Camp of the Saints is a French dystopian novel I probably would have never heard of if Amazon had not "accidentally" decided to quit selling it on April 17, 2026. From what I remember, audio and e-book copies of the novel continued to be sold by Amazon even after the paperback edition had been removed from the site, but the resulting backlash was immediate and loud. Within hours, the physical copy of The Camp of the Saints was available again - and it would be hard for Amazon to convince anyone that it all happened because of some kind of fluke in their system. 

So my curiosity was aroused, and I decided to get a copy to see what all the fuss was about. 

The Camp of the Saints is a book about the end of Western society as we know it when the West allows itself be overwhelmed by the influx of roughly one million impoverished migrants from India who arrive on the southern coast of France on the same morning aboard a fleet of decrepit ships. 

So is this a racist novel or is it simply a prophetic one that warned the Western world about something that was already inevitable in 1973? The answer is yes. The Camp of the Saints is eerily prophetic - and it uses racism and racist terms to make its key points. Take this passage, for instance:

"You're nothing to them, you and all you stand for. Your world doesn't mean a thing. They won't even try to understand it. They'll be tired, man. Tired and cold. And they'll build a fire with your big wooden door. And they'll crap all over your terrace, and wipe their hands on your shelves full of books. And they'll spit out your wine, and eat with their fingers from all that nice pewter handing inside on your wall. Then they'll squat on their heels and watch your easy chairs go up in smoke. And they'll use your fancy bedsheets to pretty themselves up in. All your things will lose their meaning. Your meaning, man. What's beautiful won't be, what's useful they'll laugh at, what's useless they won't even bother with. Nothing's going to be worth a thing." 

 In the end, first France and then the rest of Europe (with Switzerland being the last holdout) are quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers and the violent refusal of the migrants to be stopped, or even slowed down, by those with the responsibility for protecting the borders of their countries. If Jean Raspail had stopped there, his novel might not have received the backlash it suffered when first published in 1973. The legitimate claim that The Camp of the Saints is overtly racist comes primarily from the way that Raspail portrays the Indian migrants. He treats them as one undifferentiated mass, every one of them portrayed as filthy, disease ridden animals interested only in filling their stomachs and having sex with whomever is handy. 

The Camp of the Saints is a shocking novel, but it is not a particularly well written one. Its translated prose is difficult to read, all of its characters are pretty much despicable, and its legitimate message is smothered by Raspail's racist take on mass migration. I don't really recommend wasting too much time on this one unless your curiosity about why Amazon attempted to throttle its sale in the first place makes it worth your while to find a copy. I don't regret reading The Camp of the Saints, but I found it to be a huge disappointment.

The Body in the Bath (November 2026) - Ragnar Jónasson

 

I've read some of Ragnar Jónasson's work in the past, and was particularly taken by his Hulda series featuring a 64-year-old Icelandic female detective facing imminent forced retirement. That series is particularly well crafted in the way that it delivers an early gut punch to the reader before recounting Hulda's entire story in reverse chronological order. The first three books in the series (along with U.S. publication dates) are: The Darkness (2018), The Island (2019), and The Mist (2019). A fourth book in the series, Hulda, was published in 2024 but is not yet available in an English translation, although French language readers have recently been treated to the French edition. 

The good news for Hulda fans is that Hulda and her past play prominent roles in the third book in Jónasson's Helgi Reykdal series, the soon-to-be-published The Body in the Bath. Helgi Reykdal is the young detective for whom Hulda was pushed out of the Reykjavik police department at age sixty-four. While never having met her personally, Helgi is aware of his connection to Hulda and uses that attachment as a distraction from his own troubles with the department. Please note that despite not having read the first two books in this series, I was pleased to see how well The Body in the Bath works as a standalone crime novel. 

As the novel opens, Helgi has just recently returned to work after grieving the death of his girlfriend Anita in a car accident for a month. His superiors would have preferred that Helgi not come back so soon, but realizing how dazed and angry Helgi still is, they allow him to work some old case files at his own pace. Helgi has good reason to be angry: the driver who struck Anita is none other than his old girlfriend Bergpóra, a violent alcoholic who was often physically abusive to Helgi during the course of their relationship. Helgi is convinced that Anita's death was no accident, and he is determined to prove it.

But then Bergpóra is found dead in her own bath tub, and Helgi is the prime, if not the only, suspect in her murder. Now he is struggling to convince his fellow cops that he is innocent - but that will not be easy.

Note - I suspect that anyone reading The Body in the Bath will want to at least take a look  at the first two books in the series: Death at the Sanatorium (2024) and The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer (2025).

Will Reading Fewer Books at a Time Mean Greater Retention?

 

My daily routine has been so different these last few weeks that I've slipped into, what is for me, an unusual reading pattern. I have been forced to squeeze in reading time wherever I can find it, and reading in short bursts has considerably lessened my retention rate. That means that reading in and out of eight or nine books at a time is out of the question right now, and I'm down to reading one physical book and one e-book instead. And surprisingly enough, I'm enjoying the change.

But still, I'm way behind on reviewing the handful of books that I've finished in the last month or so, and I'm not sure how that is ultimately going to work out. I suspect my reviews will be shorter than they've tended to be in the last year, but I want to write them anyway, even if just as an self-exercise to help me remember as much about the books as possible.

Finished but not yet reviewed are: 

• Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth,
• Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne,
• Eifelheim by Michael Flynn,
• The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail,
• Crows by Charles Dickinson, and
• The Body in the Bath by Ragnar Jónasson.

Honestly, it's going to be a push to get those all written, but my intentions are good...at least for now.

I just finished The Body in the Bath this afternoon, an ARC that will be published in November. Those of you who enjoyed Jónasson's Hulda series a while back when several of us were reading it, will want to get your hands on this one as soon as you can. The three Hulda books comprise one of my favorite crime series ever, and it was really fun to watch Hulda's successor start to nose around in what may have happened to her right before she was scheduled to resign her detective position with the Reykjavik police department. The Body in the Bath is actually the third book in Jónasson's Helgi Reykdal series - but it works well as a standalone for those of us who have not read the first two books yet.

I hadn't been to the library since June, but managed to drop by this morning to see if something would catch my eye. The Radiant Dark did just that, and that's the physical book I'll be reading for the next few days. From the book flap: "It's March 1980, and Carol Gerrard and her husband are living an ordinary life in a small town in the Adirondacks. They have just had their first child, and though Carol is struggling with the challenges of motherhood, her future seems clear. Until something extraordinary happens: an inexplicable flickering of light in the sky, which is ultimately determined to be communication from intelligent life on another planet. But these beings are eleven light-years away, and nothing is known about them other than the fact that they seem to know we exist too. And so begins a decades-long exchange of messages with this mysterious, faraway civilization." The Radiant Dark was published in April 2026 and weighs in at 412 pages. I have high hopes for it. 

The e-book I'll be concentrating on is Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. I decided to make this one my first attempt at reading something for my 1926 project. I'm still hoping to read at least three or four from 1926, but this one has gotten off to a bit of a rough start with me. The set-up is taking a long time, but I've read so many good things about it, that I'm going to read on until the plot finally arrives in the present day. It's the story of a middle-aged spinster forced to move out of the family home by her brother. And there she makes a pact with the devil and discovers that her true calling is witchcraft. I think it's an early feminist novel that uses satire to make its point.

I think this less distracting pace is just what I need right now if I'm going to be able to remember anything about my reading...now I just need to find the time to read and write a little. I hope you all are doing well out there. It's so hot and humid in Houston that we are all keeping our heads down as much as we can. Theoretically, that means more reading time. We'll have to see about that. 

I See You've Called in Dead (2025) - John Kenney

 

To say that I've been overwhelmed by life lately is a gross understatement. We are still in the early stages of dealing with the aftermath of my brother-in-law's sudden accidental death on June 23, and that is likely to remain the case for the next several months. Because we do not live particularly near any of the locations we need to meet with contractors, lawyers, insurance people, and public authorities, we have been on the road an average of twice a week for the past five weeks...something like nine trips and about 2,000 miles at this point. 

But in a case of serendipity, the right book for the moment hollered out to me a few days ago. I was looking around my library website for something to read and stumbled upon "Libby Reads Global" and the chance to read John Kinney's I See You Called in Dead immediately. No waiting list, just borrow the book and begin reading it along with thousands of others around the world at the same time. The timing was perfect.

It's the story of an obituary writer named Bud Stanley who is going through a traumatic midlife crisis at the age of 44. Bud's wife has left him for a much more interesting and successful man, and Bud is back into the modern dating scene. Let's just say that's not going particularly well for him. He bottoms out one night when he is waiting for his blind date to show up - only to learn that she brings her ex-boyfriend along with her to tell Bud that they have decided to get back together. Bud is humiliated by the experience, goes home to get drunk on his own, and ends up writing his own obituary as a joke. The problem with that little exercise is that he decides to post the obituary on his newspaper's live website. 

Of course, the paper wants to fire Bud, but they learn that it is illegal to fire a "dead person." Until they can work out that little snag in their system, Bud is suspended without pay, and is own his own. With all of that free time on his hands, Bud begins, along with a couple of friends of his, to attend the wakes and funerals of total strangers. I know...let the hilarity begin.

As the author puts it, Bud Stanley is "an obituary writer who is afraid to live." This is his chance. As Bud delves into the lives of the strangers whose funerals he attends, he learns more and more about life and what it means to be human. Along the way, the rest of us get to meet the fascinating people in Bud's inner circle: Tim, his wheelchair-bound best friend and mentor; Clara, the woman who first drew Bud into attending all those funerals; Leo, the little boy down the block who truly believes that he and Bud are best friends (and maybe they are); and Tuan, Bud's gay obituary co-writer who helps Bud adjust to life more than he knows. 

"How rude of the dead to die. How selfish. Wherever they are, no pain, in eternal darkness or wondrous afterlife. And here we are, tears streaming down our cheeks, the knotted stomach and clammy palms, a feeling akin to falling, in a dream that won't end."

Don't let this quote mislead you. True, much of I See You Called in Dead is quite poignant - but it is often laugh-out-loud funny, too. The whole package is quite inspirational, in fact, because it's a reminder of just how short life really is, and how easy it is to waste it.

I think you'll like this one a lot.